ions; and the Society of Barristers and
Students of the Middle Temple thanked his majesty for the attention he
had shown to the trade of the kingdom, concerning which, and its balance
(and upon this last article they laid particular stress), they seemed to
think themselves peculiarly called upon to deliver their opinion. But
whatever might be their knowledge in matters of trade, it was at least
equal to that which these addressers showed in the laws and constitution
of their country, since they boldly affirmed the king's right to levy the
duties, and declared that it had never been disputed but by persons
engaged, in what they were pleased to call rebellion against his royal
father. The address concluded with a sort of prayer that all his
majesty's subjects might be as good lawyers as themselves, and disposed
to acknowledge the royal prerogative in all its extent.

If these addresses are remarkable for their servility, that of the
gentlemen and freeholders of the county of Suffolk was no less so for the
spirit of party violence that was displayed in it. They would take care,
they said, to choose representatives who should no more endure those who
had been for the Exclusion Bill, than the last parliament had the
abhorrers of the association; and thus not only endeavoured to keep up
his majesty's resentment against a part of their fellow-subjects, but
engaged themselves to imitate, for the purpose of retaliation, that part
of the conduct of their adversaries which they considered as most illegal
and oppressive.

It is a remarkable circumstance, that among all the adulatory addresses
of this time, there is not to be found, in any one of them, any
declaration of disbelief in the popish plot, or any charge upon the late
parliament for having prosecuted it, though it could not but be well
known that such topics would, of all others, be most agreeable to the
court. Hence we may collect that the delusion on this subject was by no
means at an end, and that they who, out of a desire to render history
conformable to the principles of poetical justice, attribute the
unpopularity and downfall of the Whigs to the indignation excited by
their furious and sanguinary prosecution of the plot, are egregiously
mistaken. If this had been in any degree the prevailing sentiment, it is
utterly unaccountable that, so far from its appearing in any of the
addresses of these times, this most just ground of reproach upon the Whig
party, and t